Case Study Description of Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B)
This case is available in only hard copy format (HBP does not have digital distribution rights to the content). As a result, a digital Educator Copy of the case is not available through this web site.Describes the Bush administration clean air bill of 1989 and other legislative proposals.
Swot Analysis of "Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B)" written by Forest Reinhardt includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Copy Acid facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Government, Sustainability and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) casestudy better are - – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is backlash against globalization, increasing commodity prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Copy Acid, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Copy Acid operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Copy Acid
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Global Business field.
4. Making a Global Business topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Copy Acid
Strengths Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Copy Acid in Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Analytics focus
– Copy Acid is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Forest Reinhardt can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Innovation driven organization
– Copy Acid is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Global Business industry
– Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Copy Acid to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Global Business industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Copy Acid to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- Copy Acid is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Copy Acid is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Copy Acid is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Copy Acid are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Copy Acid
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Copy Acid does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Copy Acid has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Copy Acid in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– Copy Acid is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
High brand equity
– Copy Acid has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Copy Acid to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) are -
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Copy Acid supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Copy Acid vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Copy Acid is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Global Business segment. Copy Acid needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Copy Acid to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Copy Acid is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B), is just above the industry average. Copy Acid needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B), it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Global Business strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B), in the dynamic environment Copy Acid has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Copy Acid has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) HBR case study mentions - Copy Acid takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Need for greater diversity
– Copy Acid has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Copy Acid has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B), it seems that the employees of Copy Acid don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Copy Acid has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Opportunities Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) are -
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Copy Acid to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Buying journey improvements
– Copy Acid can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Copy Acid can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Copy Acid in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Global Business segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Copy Acid has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Copy Acid to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Copy Acid to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Copy Acid to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Copy Acid can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help, as suggested in case study, Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B), to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Copy Acid is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Copy Acid has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Copy Acid can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Copy Acid can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Copy Acid operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Global Business sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Global Business industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Copy Acid can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Copy Acid can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Copy Acid can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) are -
Regulatory challenges
– Copy Acid needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Global Business industry regulations.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Copy Acid can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Copy Acid is facing in Global Business sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Copy Acid has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Global Business industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Copy Acid needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Global Business sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Copy Acid needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Global Business industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B), Copy Acid may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Global Business .
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Copy Acid will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Copy Acid in the Global Business industry. The Global Business industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Copy Acid with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Copy Acid can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) .
Environmental challenges
– Copy Acid needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Copy Acid can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Global Business industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Acid Rain: Burlington Northern, Inc. (B) is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Copy Acid needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.